Shevoroshkin V.V., Sidwell P.J. (ed.) Languages and their Speakers in Ancient Eurasia

Dedicated to Professor Aharon Dolgopolsky on his 70th Birthday. — Canberra: Association for the History of Language, 2002. — 269 p. — (Monograph series 1. AHL studies in the science & history of language. Volume 5). — ISBN 0-9577251-3-2.It has been a tremendously satisfying experience to facilitate the successful completion and publication of this volume dedicated to Aharon Dolgopolsky. He is a living treasure who embodies the continuity of the Nostratic tradition in linguistics today. From its first scientific conception by the great Dane Holger Pedersen in the 1890s to its first solid reconstruction in the 1960s, Nostratic studies sat on the very fringe of comparative linguistics, being visited only occasionally, and too often by scholars who's enthusiasm was not always matched by thoroughness or patience. Fortunately all that changed four decades ago when two brilliant young Soviet scholars, Dolgopolsky and lllich-Svitych, began (at first independently and later in cooperation) to reveal the details of our Nostratic ancestry. Like forensic pathologists sculpting clay onto a Neanderthal skull to breathe life into long dead bones, their work at last allowed us to look far back into our linguistic past with a confidence and precision never before attained.
Illich-Svitych passed away in awful circumstances, but Dolgopolsky carried on the work, and effectively founded a new school of linguistics, one that has spawned some of the most productive, interesting and controversial comparative linguistics of the latter part of the 20th century. Among the international linguistic community it must be said that a tremendous degree of scepticism has been directed at the work of the so-called 'Moscow School' and others who may better called the Palæolinguistic fraternity, to the extent that being a fellowtraveller is rarely a career enhancing position. But this is normal in the sciences — progress grows out of conflict, adversity and long-term dedication that is based on principle. I myself have more recently taken a more cautious attitude towards the long-range endeavor in linguistics, but at the same time I am more convinced than ever that we are all the more richer for its existence, and l welcome and encourage interest in the field. I am confident that Nostratic studies will be with us, pursued by a small international fraternity, for many decades after fads such as Transformational/Generative Grammar (and its variants and successors) have become no more than unpleasant memories pricked by the selfserving historiographies that seem to fill many library shelves. Blanket condemnations that palreolinguistic reconstruction is marred by false cognates, undetected borrowings and faulty citations, are unfair-these are normal problems for all comparative linguistics. The fact is that we do encounter obstacles and limitations when we arc taking bold steps, but that should not deter us: "We do these things not because they are easy... ". The quest for understanding of our prehistoric past is both bigger than the careers of individuals and crucially dependent on individuals who will make the investment, take the risks, and pass their experience and wisdom on to others. Aharon Dolgopolsky is such a man.Prefaces.
Phonology and Grammar.
Sergei Starostin. Nostratic stops revisited.
John R. Orr. Does the Indo-European suffix - TER come from Uralic?
Peter Michalove. The role of morphology in nostratic studies.
Claude Boisson. Some sumerian grammatical elements in a nostratic perspective.
Etymology.
Aharon Dolgopolsky. Three entries from the 'Nostratic dictionary'.
John Bengtson. Dene-Caucasian *x^(w)owHV 'MOUTH ~ TOOTH'.
Vladimir Terent'ev. Nostratic naming of the index finger.
Lexicon.
Harald Sverdrup. The pictish language.
Harald Sverdrup. Exploring properties of the Rätian (Rhaetic) language.
Harald Sverdrup, Ramon Guardans. A study of the tartessian script and language.
Vyacheslav Ivanov. Comparative notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian and Indo-European.
Claude Boisson. Summerian terms for caprines and antelopes.
Indices. (Compiled by James Parkinson).